Member Case Study

ART BOISVERT

Upper Canada Woods Cooperative
Woodlot Harvest Case Study # 1
By Bruce Dodds, UCWC Field Rep
April 2005

" The Co-op has been a great help – you don’t just go in and slash and burn the forest. The Co-op is a good way to do proper management and pick up a bit of income, hopefully, to help keep up tax wise. It’s given me some insight about what can be done."— Art Boisvert

Art and Doris Boisvert joined the Upper Canada Woods Cooperative (UCWC) soon after it was founded in 2002. Though the Boisverts live in Kingston, their first love is a pair of rugged, wooded properties in the shield country north of Napanee. One, in the former Hinchinbrooke Township, is mostly rock, bush and swamp. “Good hunting though!” Art says with a grin. The Boisverts’ other woodlot, in the former Sheffield Township (now Stone Mills) near Arden, is less rocky. “Sheffield used to be a farm and had numerous open areas,” Art points out. “We liked it because it has excellent potential for growth.”

The Sheffield property has been used primarily for recreation over the years: skiing, snowmobiling and family time - and, of course, hunting.

“ We’ve had very good deer hunting here. We can sit out in front of the house and see as many as eight or nine deer in the field. There’s mink and marten too so the MNR thinks wild turkeys wouldn’t have much of a chance but we’ve seen a big tom turkey out in field in the past. Mind you, that’s maybe why we haven’t seen him more recently.”

A retired electrical contractor , Art grew up close to the forest. “I was born in the north, in Timmins. I spent a lot of time in the bush as a kid; even in high school we had to fight forest fires, then I prospected for a while too. I like the woods.”

In the 1970s the Ministry of Natural Resources recommended that the Boiverts plant red pine on the property. “We created a five acre plantation,” Art says, “but when the government reneged on the contract I cancelled mine too. I was a little leery to be involved with government again because of the conditions and broken promises but, listening to the Ontario Woodlot Association, I realized that I should do something because the taxes kept going up.”

“ When I heard about the UCWC I drew up a management plan. [Consultant] Keith Johnson suggested I put at least one property under the Managed Forest Tax Incentive Program for a reduction in property taxes. And with the Co-op I thought if I’m going to do some harvesting, I should do it wisely. The Co-op has been a great help – you don’t just go in and slash and burn the forest. The Co-op is a good way to do proper management and pick up a bit of income, hopefully, to help keep up tax wise. It’s given me some insight about what can be done.”

In the summer of 2004, L&A Stewardship Co-ordinator Steve Pitt notified UCWC members with management plans that white cedar was in great demand. Art asked Steve about his Sheffield property and Steve agreed it was probably overstocked and due for harvesting. Steve recommended a number of contractors and consultants on behalf of UCWC including Frank Taylor, a forestry consultant based in Napanee. “Frank prepared the report on availability and did the tree marking. Frank provided us with a rough quantity of what was available so the contractors could come and look at it and decide what it was worth.”

"This property had been logged before,” Art recalls. “Whatever logging they did was kind of rough though because there were oak and maple logs scattered out in the fields. It was a shame to just to cut them up for firewood” With Frank Taylor’s tree marking and the careful monitoring of UCWC, the Boisverts’ recent harvest was very different experience from earlier cutting.

Frank marked 507 trees for cutting. Of these, 246 containing 17,200 fbm (board feet: one board foot = 1” x 12” x 12”) were suitable for lumber including 9100 fbm of white cedar, 6,200 fbm of hemlock, and smaller quantities of poplar and white pine. An additional 70 trees were marked for firewood and 191 as cedar posts with minimum 5” tops at 12’ lengths.

Art and Doris elected to look after settling a contract and overseeing harvesting of their woodlot themselves. They narrowed their contractor list down to one, Geoff Schimmel, a UCWC member, and his firm, Loyalist Forest Products. “We talked and negotiated with him and signed a contract.”

Art sold his standing timber as marked to Loyalist Forest Products for $3,667.60 including GST (there is no PST on logging operations). Prices paid ranged from $0.10 fbm for hemlock and $0.20 fbm for white cedar to $0.30 fbm for white pine; posts were valued at $2.00 each and firewood at $25 per full cord.

Art’s contract with Loyalist Forest Products contained important provisions for protecting both the Boisverts and their forest. Loyalist Loyalist paid 25% of the contract price at signing, for example, and committed to paying the balance within 10 days. Other provisions included time limits for completion of the work, a limit on log length of 16 feet for all skidding, and strict penalties for incorrect felling and unnecessary damage to unmarked trees. Slash piles were not to exceed three feet in height. The contract also prohibited subcontracting without permission and entitled the owners to terminate cutting if their agreement was breached. A dispute clause stipulated binding arbitration in the event of any unresolved disagreement.

Art was also able to purchase some of the lumber Geoff cut from his logs for use by his family. “At that time my son was building a house and needed some white cedar for a deck. So we made an arrangement to buy some of it back. We also bought back some hemlock which we used for posts and beams of the deck.”

With Art’s permission, Geoff Schimmel hired logger Glen Beatty to fell, buck and skid the logs. “It turned out to be a good site for the contractor with a lot of open spaces he could use as a landing. We weren’t used to seeing harvesting done and we had a choice of having all the brush and limbs piled in the field next to the bush or in the bush itself. It was decided to leave the brush pretty much where it was except to pile it a little so we can walk through it. Being cedar we knew it would take a good while longer to decompose. It’s already showing good signs of wildlife. Rabbits and other small animals are taking advantage of the shelter.”

Art is cautious about offering recommendations to people who are thinking about cutting timber in their own forests. “Make sure that the contractor does a neat job and really protects the existing trees,” he suggests, however. “I’m not used to looking at a harvested stand, but according to Steve, our cut was a very clean one.”

“ People should do some harvesting just for the sake of proper thinning to give the bush a chance to grow healthy,” he adds, noting that Frank Taylor felt the Boiverts’ woodlot would have benefited from harvesting considerably earlier.

Thinning has become a major challenge for tree plantation owners in recent years with the withdrawal of the provincial govern- ment from earlier contracts and programs. Even where quantities of commercial timber can be culled, contractors are often reluctant to take on smaller woodlots.

Art notes that Laverne Heideman, a respected plantation specialist based in Eganville, has told him that he is willing to work in small woodlots if local landowners join their small acreages together to make it worthwhile for him to bring his equipment in. “You have to get four or five people like us together,” Art says.

Art would also like to see UCWC or the Ontario Woodlot Association design a bookkeeping system for woodlot owners to help keep track of expenses such as lawyers’ fees, purchase costs, tax bills, planting and other costs over the multi-year period between timber cuts. “I’ve never had to deal with the tax department but it’s always good to have paperwork behind you if you’re challenged. The amount of money you get from harvesting is minimal – you want to be able to cover your costs.”

What would Art like to see for his woodlot down the road? “I’d like to see it generate some hardwood for the future because there’s already some good hardwood there. As for as the red pine, I hope to see a little income but we’ve got to keep thinning them out.”

"Being cedar we knew it would take a good while longer to decompose. It’s already showing good signs of wildlife. Rabbits and other small animals are taking advantage of the shelter." — Art Boisvert